1. Field Of The Invention
This invention relates generally to the manufacture of textile yarns. In particular, it relates to an apparatus for the fluid jet interlacing of multifilament yarns.
2. Prior Art Statement
There has been a long-standing need in the industry for an apparatus which will produce a coherent textile yarn bundle at high rates of speed without twisting. As-spun or zero twist yarns, without sufficient coherency, perform poorly in many common textile operations, such as winding, tufting, weaving, and knitting, as a result of the looseness of the structure of these yarns. Such a lack of coherency is responsible for snagging and breaking of individual filaments, which causes the formation of slubs, wraps, and the like. As a consequence, producers or processers of textile yarn generally carry out the additional step of twisting the yarn in order to provide an acceptable starting product. Twisting, which serves to compact and unify a yarn bundle, is an expensive and time-consuming operation which, usually performed with frequent interruptions, adds disproportionately to the cost of the yarn.
Over the years a number of expedients have been proposed, some of the more noteworthy of which are those disclosed in the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,262,179; 3,455,096; 3,110,151; 4,011,640; and 4,035,883. The closest prior art is considered to be U.S. Pat. No. 3,262,179, which discloses an apparatus for interlacing multifilament yarn which includes a body member providing a yarn-treating face and having a vortex cavity in said face. Cooperating with the body member is a well member having a planar surface spaced from the yarn treating face to form a yarn passageway. Yarn guide means controls the direction of yarn travel through the passageway, and a pair of fluid conduits are provided in the body member, terminating at opposite sides of the vortex cavity in the yarn treating face and positioned to direct fluid against the surface of the well member.
In contradistinction to the device disclosed in this reference, the device of the present invention does not employ a vortex chamber in a yarn treating face of the body member. Instead, the particularly defined configuration of the present invention results in the yarn passageway itself being a type of "vortex chamber". This results in enhanced interlacing effectiveness in operation, at reduced fluid energy consumption, nd facility in the manufacture of the device itself.